


When Asked to Make a Point, I Tend to Whisper

by Chash



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-20 01:16:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12422010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chash/pseuds/Chash
Summary: It's not that weird for Nate to stop by to check on Monty when he's sick. Nate lives close by, Jasper's out of town. He's being considerate. He's a good friend. He's definitely helping.





	When Asked to Make a Point, I Tend to Whisper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jennycaakes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennycaakes/gifts).



Nate would not say he identifies as a caretaker. It's not like he's _bad_ at it, but he doesn't think it comes naturally to him. He has to work for it.

Part of that is Bellamy's fault. After all, when your best friend is basically the ultimate mother hen/parent friend, and his girlfriend worries about things on a semi-professional level, it's hard to feel as if you're really necessary for the whole process. Like cooking for yourself when your roommate is a five-star chef who's happy to share--sure he _could_ help out in a crisis situation, but it's a lot easier to just let Bellamy and Clarke tell him what to do.

But now Monty is sick. And he's the kind of sick where Bellamy and Clarke aren't going to go over to his apartment to babysit him, because they (thankfully) still have some sense of boundaries, which means that Monty is alone, and sick, and kind of miserable, and Nate's not really willing to let him do that alone.

Overall, it's a terrible situation and Nate wishes none of them were in it. But they are, so he's going to do his fucking best.

"Are you dying?" is Bellamy's greeting when he picks up the phone.

"Why would I be dying?" Nate grumbles. "I'm at CVS."

"You've never called me," says Bellamy. "Like, ever. In our entire lives. I honestly thought this was a butt dial."

"That's how you answer butt dials? _Are you dying_?"

"Better safe than sorry. Seriously, why are you calling? What are you doing in CVS?"

Nate exhales, counts to five in his head, and admits, "I'm making a care package for Monty. What should I get?"

To his credit, Bellamy recognizes that now is not the time for mockery. The time for mockery is definitely whenever Monty is better and Nate is just pining away embarrassingly again. As is the natural order of things.

"Which CVS are you at? Davis?"

"Yeah."

"Don't buy canned soup. He's sick, he deserves fresh soup. I'm going to find a place for you to get some. Are you assuming he has medicine?"

"Jesus, I'm already sorry I asked."

"Actually, I bet Clarke knows." There's a fuzzy sound as Bellamy covers the speaker, but Nate can still hear him say, "Clarke, how's Monty doing with medicine?" A pause, and then Bellamy, "Cough drops would be good."

"You guys are creepy."

"You called me. Because you're making a care package. So I'd shut the fuck up if I were you."

"Thanks, good feedback. What else?"

The problem with asking Bellamy for advice on what to buy for a sick friend is that he's honestly completely over the top, but he's also _right_. So Nate leaves CVS with a completely excessive amount of stuff, all of which felt totally necessary when Bellamy was listing it off.

"I still need soup?" he asks, dubious.

"Just if you want him to feel better," says Bellamy, and Nate sighs.

His excuse for doing this in the first place is that he and Monty don't live that far apart, and Monty's roommate is out of town. But the real reason he's doing it is that he has a crush, and he's worried, and he doesn't like the idea of Monty alone. It's weird, but survivably weird, even if Monty is creeped out.

Again, it's the beauty of Bellamy.

"If he thinks this is too much, I'm going to say it was your idea."

"If he thinks this is too much, you should say you want to date him. That would explain it and you might actually get laid."

"Helpful," says Nate.

"You have any idea how many times you told me I should just ask Clarke out already? Because I don't. You said it way too much. I lost count."

"Yeah, but I was right."

"Uh huh. Get the fucking soup, Miller."

He gets the fucking soup, and Bellamy wishes him luck, and then, because he’s Bellamy, adds, “Let me know how he’s doing.”

“Is there some kind of Guinness record for worrying you're trying to set?”

“You called me. I was just going to let him take care of himself. Don't act like this was all my idea.”

It’s an annoyingly valid point that Nate can’t really dispute, so he ignores it. “I’ll keep you posted,” he says instead.

“You’re an asshole,” says Bellamy. “Don’t get sick.”

“If I do, you’ll take care of me.”

“Shut up,” he says, without heat, and then the line goes dead.

He is, Nate has to admit, a basically perfect best friend.

Nate and Monty live in the same neighborhood, just in different directions from the train. He couldn’t casually stop by Monty’s on his way home, which is part of why he just called Bellamy for the CVS run. He is obviously and undeniably going out of his way, so he might as well do it right.

He pushes the buzzer at Monty’s apartment and waits for the intercom to crackle into life. It doesn’t take long, which means Monty was neither asleep nor dead. So that’s something.

“Hey, it’s Miller,” he says.

There’s a pause. “Miller?”

“Thought you might need some stuff.”

The door clicks open, and Nate heads up the two flights of stairs to Monty’s floor. He hasn’t been here a lot, but he knows which apartment is Monty and Jasper’s. And even if he didn’t, they have a Star Trek doormat, so he would have figured it out.

Monty opens the door in nothing but a pair of pajama pants. His hair is in uneven spikes on his head, and it’s a good thing he’s sniffling and visibly exhausted, or Nate would probably be too attracted to him to function.

“Miller,” he says, sounding kind of blank.

Nate holds up his bag. “I brought soup.”

Monty blinks a few times, and then actually startles into alertness. “Oh my god, you brought me soup.”

“Yeah,” he says. “And some other stuff.”

For the first time, Monty looks away from Nate’s face to focus on the bags he’s carrying, and his eyes widen in surprise.

“Holy shit, you brought me a lot of soup.”

“Most of it isn’t soup. Can I come in or you just want me to drop it off and leave?”

“No!” he says quickly. He clears his throat. “Come in. Obviously. Thank you so much. You really didn’t have to. I told Clarke I was fine.”

“It’s not like it’s far for me.”

“But still. You didn’t have to.”

“No problem, I don’t mind. Go sit down. You hungry now? Want the soup? Juice? Cough drops?”

“Soup would be good. What kind of soup?”

“Chicken noodle. The standard.”

“Seriously, thank you so much. I think there’s cranberry juice in the fridge? And obviously, you know, whatever you want, it’s—“

The end of his sentence is lost in a fit of coughing, and Nate gets him soup, juice, and some cough syrup before he goes back to the kitchen to unload the rest of the stuff. It is a lot of stuff, but it wasn’t that expensive, and Jasper’s gone until next week. Honestly, he should just text Monty to see if he needs anything on his way home from now on. Now that the ice is broken.

“Are you washing my dishes?” Monty calls.

It’s a question Nate doesn’t want to answer, but it’s also hard to avoid. “You’ve got a dishwasher. I’m just rinsing them before they go in. Go to sleep.”

It doesn’t work, of course. Monty comes into the kitchen wrapped in a blanket and collapses into a chair.

“How much is Bellamy paying you?”

“He’s not paying me. I don’t mind.”

“I’m really fine. Okay, not _fine_ ,” he corrects, before Nate can object. “But I can wash my own dishes. This is seriously not necessary.”

“It’s fine, Monty. I know Jasper’s out of town. I don’t mind helping. You should just focus on getting better.”

He blinks a few more times. “Is this a fever dream? If you’re a fever dream, can you tell me you’re a fever dream? Do you know?”

“Do you have a fever now?” Nate asks. “I thought it was just a cold.”

“I no longer trust my perception of reality. Please stop doing my dishes.”

He snorts. “I had no idea it was that weird.” 

“They’re _my_ dishes.”

“Well, they’re done now. So you’re good. Did you actually eat the soup?”

“Some of it, yeah. Just—you’re here.”

“I can leave.”

“No, that’s not—“ He makes a face. “I didn’t expect Bellamy and Clarke to send a representative. I told them I was fine.”

“Like I said, it’s not far.” Since Monty has now twice told him not to leave, he figures he can press his luck. “Want to watch a movie?”

“Do _you_ want to watch a movie?”

“Yeah.”

He opens and closes his mouth, finally settles on, “What did you have in mind?”

Nate bites back on his grin. “Whatever you want. Sick guy picks.”

“Thanks,” he says. “You know, for the whole deal.”

“No problem. My pleasure.”

*

He texts Monty to ask if he needs anything Wednesday and Thursday, and when the answer is no both times, he says he’s coming over on Friday and asks what to bring, which works a lot better and means Monty gets groceries. He’s clearly most of the way better, and they play some video games and Nate leaves in good spirits. He might not be great at this, but he did his best. He definitely didn't make it worse.

The next Thursday, his own door buzzer goes off around 6:15, which he doesn’t connect to the whole sickness thing until he turns on the intercom and a voice says, “Hey, it’s Monty, I have pizza.”

Nate takes a second to assess himself; he changed into a t-shirt and pajama pants after he got home, but it’s not like those are inappropriate for company. He thinks he looks fine, and Monty would probably find it weird if he asked for time to change.

“Uh, cool,” he says. “Come on up.”

When he opens the door, Monty is there, holding a pizza, as promised. He looks better, less pale and more rested, his hair a little more orderly. He's still Monty, so he's wearing jeans and a Mario t-shirt, but that's part of why Nate likes him.

He still has no idea what's happening.

"Hey," he says. "What's up?"

"I owed you. So--pizza."

"You really didn't. You were sick, I was closest. I didn't mind helping out. But I never say no to pizza," he adds. "Come on in. You ready for alcohol or still feeling sick?"

"I'm always ready for alcohol."

"Beer good?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"You can put the pizza on the coffee table, I'll grab drinks and plates."

They get set up in the living room, and Nate wants to ask why Monty's really here, but he's kind of afraid that if he does, Monty will decide to leave. It makes no fucking sense, but he knows better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.

So it's Monty who offers, "Clarke told me that she and Bellamy didn't tell you to come over last week."

Nate's taking a bite of pizza that he nearly chokes on, and he has to finish it and have some beer before he manages, "What?"

"I thought they made you come. Clarke told me it was your idea, not theirs."

Nate reviews the interaction he had with Monty last week, but he's pretty sure he never actually _said_ Bellamy and Clarke sent him. He just sort of let Monty assume. "Yeah. I was worried, I live close by, it wasn't like it was hard to stop by."

"And you called Bellamy to find out what to get."

That makes him feel a little more embarrassed. Calling Bellamy is a lot of effort. "Well, he's the expert. I figured he'd know."

"Yeah." He wets his lips. "So, that was either really considerate of you as a friend or really considerate of you as someone who wants to date me. Which, like, I guess that's true of everything? Not always considerate, but, like--" He huffs. "Anyway. You could tell me which one? Just in case it's, you know, the dating me one. Which would be cool. I'd like that. But if it's not I appreciate it and I'm sorry if I made things weird and--"

"It's the dating one," Nate says. "You can breathe."

He grins. "Oh, good. Because the pizza was supposed to be a first date if you were interested, so--are you free tonight?"

Nate feels a smile tugging at his own lips. "Not anymore."

"Perfect," says Monty.

He leans in for a kiss, and, Nate has to admit, it really is perfect.


End file.
